IRL has published new edition of “A Profile of the Central European Paint Industry.” This report has been developed and expanded upon from IRL’s previous studies and forms part of a series of ten reports assessing the global market for paint and coatings.

The scope of the report extends to fourteen national paint and coatings markets across the continent from Central Europe to the countries of the Balkan and Black Sea regions. The report covers the markets in Albania, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Croatia, Czech Republic, Hungary, Kosovo, Macedonia, Montenegro, Poland, Romania, Serbia, Slovakia and Slovenia. It evaluates and provides market insight into nine mainstream coating sectors.

The Central European paint market was estimated at approximately 1,346,550 tonnes in 2011 and is expected to grow to 1,531,900 tons by 2016. Growth is forecast to vary across the region, with the markets of Poland, Slovakia and several Balkan markets expected to exhibit higher growth rates. Average growth in paint demand across the whole region is expected at about 2.6% p.a., underpinned by such simple factors as growth in industrial output, rising salaries and greater disposable incomes, and moderate growth of the construction industries, recovering from the economic crisis of 2009.

• Polad is by far the largest paint consumer in the Central European region, accounting for approximately 44% of the total market.

• In 2011 up to mid-2012 there was an upsurge in the demand for architectural paints in Poland due to construction work related to the Euro 2012 football tournament.

• As much of the impact of low-VOC and REACH legislation has taken place in Poland, the local architectural paint market is now saturated with waterborne paints and this segment continues to increase.

• The yacht industry is one of the developing marketing opportunities for marine coatings consumption in Poland.

• The Czech Republic is in second place among Central European markets with a share of consumption of 13.2%. This is the market with the highest paint per capita consumption indicator (16.9 kg/head) in the CEE region.

• There is a growing industrial coatings segment in the Czech Republic, benefitting from growing domestic demand and relocations of Western European paint manufacturers to the country. The market is driven by the growing consumption of paint from the automotive, consumer goods and furniture industries.

• Romania and Hungary come in the third and fourth places and occupy almost equal market share.

• The Balkan market is placed at almost 129,000 tons, with the fastest growing demand for paints in Serbia.

• The demand for paints in smaller Balkan countries is almost 100% covered by imported material.

• The Serbian market offers the best growth opportunities for automotive OEM coatings. Macedonia, Croatia and Kosovo are the fastest growing markets for wood coatings.

• The Slovenian paint market is rather a stable one, with declining demand from the automotive industry and a stable trend in consumption from other downstream markets such as construction and the furniture industries.

In many of the markets the architectural coatings segment tends to account for quite a large majority of paint demand. The percentage share of these coatings varies from country to country and can reach up to 79% (Bulgaria).

There is an evident trend of growing consumption of waterborne and low-VOC paints, driven by the high impact of environmental legislation on the market and increasing interest of consumers in the ecological properties of the products.

Multiple opportunities are likely to appear along the coatings industry value chain such as upgrading paint-making equipment, obtaining better raw materials, expansion of paint export markets and exploring the potential of acquiring new companies. New demand will appear in the area of automotive and marine coatings.